Assertiveness
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
What is assertiveness?
Healthy assertion - assertiveness - is about choice and communication. It is the making of active choices about what to do and say. It is the ability to communicate our opinions, thoughts, needs, and feelings in a direct, honest, and appropriate manner - when we choose. It is the ability to recognize our rights and make choices about exercising them. The principles of assertiveness hold that we all ... Read More
Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
This Manual is both a guide to treatment and a workbook for persons who suffer from panic disorder and agoraphobia. During treatment, it is a workbook in which individuals can record their own experience of their disorder, together with the additional advice for their particular case given by their clinician. After treatment has concluded, this Manual will serve as a self-help resource enabling those who have recovered, but who encounter ... Read More
Control of Hyperventilation
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
Recognizing hyperventilation
The first step in preventing and controlling hyperventilation is to recognize how and when you overbreathe.
Try monitoring your breathing rate now. Count one breath in and out as 1, the next breath in and out as 2, and so on. It may be difficult at first, but don't try to change your breathing rate voluntarily. Write the answer here. As part of treatment you will be required to monitor ... Read More
Graded Exposure
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
When a panic attack occurs for the first time in a certain situation, most people believe that, should they find themselves in that same situation again, they would be more than likely to panic. The occurrence of severe panics is very frightening and so, as any sensible person would, sufferers soon learn to try to anticipate situations likely to trigger their panics. For most people with panic disorder and agoraphobia, ... Read More
Thinking Straight
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
This part of the program will help you to control the thoughts that accompany and promote anxiety. This will be done by learning to label situations more appropriately and reduce the frequency, intensity and duration of upsetting emotional reactions. The techniques in this chapter should be used along with other parts of the treatment program.
All people have various thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in response to experiences throughout their days. These ... Read More
Producing the Panic Sensations
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
One of the elements central to panic is the fearful reaction to bodily sensations, such as a pounding heart, dizziness, etc. We deal with this subject towards the end of the first part of the program because the techniques involved are not easy for all people to do and we want to be sure that you have some anxiety-management techniques. In this chapter we will deal with your reactivity to ... Read More
More About Thinking Straight
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 15th 2011 under: Patient Treatment Manual
Having discussed previously how unhelpful thoughts can be identified, challenged, and disputed we shall consider another method. Rather than engaging in a mental exercise of weighing up the evidence a person can actively go out and seek evidence for and against the belief.
Examples of unhelpful thoughts include:
• I will never be able to go out without my tablets.
• If my heart starts pounding and I exert myself, I could have ... Read More
The Murder of the Self: Men and Suicide
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 8th 2011 under: Depression
Religious and bureaucratic prejudices, family sensitivity, the vagaries and differences in the proceedings of corner's courts and post-mortem examinations, the shadowy distinctions between suicides and accidents-in short, personal, official, and traditional unwillingness to recognize the actfor what it is-all help to pervert and diminish our knowledge of the extent to which suicide pervades society.
A. Alvarez
Although prevalence studies utilizing general population samples indicate that men suffer from depression at only about ... Read More
Suicide In Men: The Facts
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 8th 2011 under: Depression
When data on suicide are examined closely, the grim reality of the impact of depression on men is obvious. Studies of suicide have consistently found that men of all ages are at higher risk for suicide than are women. This finding holds true for men of all races. Suicide is the ninth leading cause of death in men, accounting for 25,950 deaths in 1995. At this rate, 20 out of ... Read More
Comorbidity And Suicide In Men
Posted By Kelly On Monday, August 8th 2011 under: Depression
Men and women who make suicide attempts and who commit suicide have been found to suffer from a number of psychiatric and psychological disturbances. In addition to the obvious contribution of major depression and related mood disorders, two major conditions that dramatically increase risk of suicide for men are alcoholism or other substance abuse and severe personality disorders. Even though mood disorders, typically major depression, are present in completed suicides ... Read More